


The Other Seven Years

by superstarling



Category: Space Cases (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 04:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarling/pseuds/superstarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILER: The creators of Space Cases originally intended to reveal that the Christa had been sent back in time to save the UPP from an invading species. This is the tragic Christa-less "alpha" storyline, plus the show timeline leading up to the attack. Will our familiar and beloved crew be able to stave off the potentially inevitable destruction of their homeworlds?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Seven Years

**Author's Note:**

> Note: underneath this cut is a very long (7.5K-word) piece of Space Cases fanfic involving time-travel and multiple timelines. And it's depressing.
> 
> If you're still interested, for some reason, there's a part in the original Space Cases bible (the concept work that the creators wrote to pitch the story) about time travel. It mentions that the timeline of the show is actually a second timeline. The original timeline has the original characters not unified by their experience. They fail against an opponent, and, as a last measure, send the ship back in time to try to save the universe. The original timeline is labeled the "Alpha Timeline" (thanks, Lucy). The timeline followed in the show is called the "Show Timeline."

**2261: Starcademy, Alpha Timeline**

 

The Starcademy Summer session’s only five students were squabbling in the classroom as the adults ostensibly in charge of them were doing the same thing in the hallway.

            “Look at that!” Harlan yelled, interrupting Catalina blathering on about how her imaginary friend was “invisible, not imaginary” and “in another dimension.” He pointed out the window.

            The other four students looked.

            “Ha! Gotcha!” Harlan laughed.

            “Are you _five_?” Catalina snapped.

            “You guys are the dumbest,” Harlan said. He pointed at Radu. “Especially Hairdo over there.”

 

**2262: Starcademy, Alpha Timeline**

 

“Why are you still here?” Harlan demanded. His face pressed up against Radu’s dripping one as Radu gasped for air. “Why can’t you just leave?”

            A few of Harlan’s friends kicked Radu’s legs from behind, making him stumble forward against the toilet bowl.

            Harlan shoved the unresisting Radu into the water again.

            “That’s for my dad,” he said, low, so his friends couldn’t hear it. “And my sister, who can’t remember him. And for all the people who look at you and remember their own families. You’re just a reminder of misery.”

            He pulled Radu out of the water. Radu coughed and gagged.

            “Do you have your switchblade?” Harlan asked the friend behind him.

            Radu closed his eyes and breathed in, out, in, out, very deeply.

            “Thanks,” he heard Harlan say.

            Radu’s neck tingled in anticipation of the icy slice and the warm gush. He craved the ensuing silence.

            Instead, he felt his hair get pulled back and then, with one jerking motion, clump to the floor at his feet.

            “Now you don’t look like a walking reincarnation of the war,” Harlan said. “But you’re still ugly.”

 

**2263: Starcademy, Alpha Timeline**

 

Radu was eating lunch in an empty science lab between classes when Catalina walked in.

            “Why are you still here?” she asked from the other side of the room.

            “Did Harlan put you up to this?” he called back. He put meal down and wiped some of the brown muck from around his mouth. Chunks of uneven hair fell into his face. They itched.

            “No,” she said. “But I don’t know why you’d stay. And put up with him. And us. I just want to know.”

            “I got kicked out of there,” he said. “No one wants me back home. No one wants me here either. At least _here_ the higher-ups think I’m fulfilling some kind of a peacekeeping mission.”

            She nodded.

            “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

            “Sure,” she said.

            “Why are you with him? Harlan?”

            She sighed.

            “I think,” she said, “that he has so much potential. To be someone amazing. I can see it in there. It’ll happen. I just know it. I want to be there for it.”

            She looked at him for a while, then left.

 

**2264: Starcademy, Alpha Timeline**

 

Radu didn’t notice that his two lab partners in Engineering were talking to him at first. He was used to zoning them out. She constantly argued with her boyfriend about the upsides and downsides of every single possible step they could implement to complete the assignment.

            “Radu,” Rosie said. She was whispering, but really loudly.

            “What?” he said. “Sorry. Is this about… polarizing the electron flow in the… conductor?”

            “No,” she said. “It isn’t about that.”

            “Don’t do this,” Bova said to her. “It’s just going to come back to us. They’ll just do something worse later.”

            “Huh?” Radu asked.

            “I’m sick of just watching,” Rosie said. “We should be better people than this.”

            “You’re going to overheat,” Bova said.

            “It’s not right,” she said to Bova. Turning to Radu, she added, “You seem like a nice guy.”

            “I’m not really anything,” Radu said. He paused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about right now, though.”

            “The obstacle course for Emergency Training Fitness? Part of it is rigged so you’ll fall through. Probably break something,” Rosie said. This time she was genuinely whispering.

            “But if you don’t fall through it now, they’ll know it was us that told you,” Bova said. “Because we walked in on them talking about it, and they saw us.”

            “It’s fine,” Rosie said to Radu. “We can handle them.”

            “Handling them is… really hard,” Radu told them. He frowned. “If I don’t fall through it, won’t someone else?”

            “They all know,” Bova said. “All of them are in on it.”

            “But… There are almost thirty people in that class,” Radu said.

            “Sorry,” Rosie whispered.

 

…

 

The following day, Radu put himself at the front of the class and ran through the obstacle course as fast and hard as he could. On a high-ropes segment, one of the ropes gave, and he fell down, through a defective net, to the ground several stories below.

            He broke both his legs, part of his arm, and several ribs.

 

**2265 (a few months later): New Andromeda Colony, Alpha Timeline**

 

“That one is ready to go back to the learning institute, 386,” the nurse, 127, told him, indicating him.

            “This one has a preference for staying with the Group,” Radu said, indicating himself.

            “The Group’s needs are in line with that one being in the learning institute,” she said. “That one disrupts the smoothness of the Group. That one’s presence away aids in the soothing of Others toward peace.”

            “The Others are cruel,” he said.

            “The Group needs this,” she said.

            “This one will serve the group,” he said. 

 

**2268: UPP, Alpha Timeline**

 

The sirens were loud; and above them, people were shrieking at each other as they stuffed their official duffel bags with possessions.

            Radu didn’t pack anything.

            _The Group doesn’t need things_ , he’d learned as a child. _The Group needs each other._

            As the students were climbing into escape pods jettisoning away from the school, Radu felt a tiny hand on his shoulder.

            “Come with us,” Rosie said.

            He shrugged and followed her and Bova into a pod. It detached from the Starcademy and began to drift away on its own volition.

            The three had met several times, in the evenings, in obscure parts of the school. Areas that weren’t being used: class areas, labs, eateries, study rooms. They played games. Joked around. No one but them knew of their friendship.

            “What’s happening?” Radu asked Rosie.

            She shrugged. “Probably a false alarm. You know, a drill.”

            “It’s not. There are one to two drills a year, and we’ve already had two,” Bova said.

            “Maybe that’s what they want you to think. It’s what you’re accustomed to, so when there’s another drill, you really take it seriously,” she said.

            “One or two per year is in the handbook,” Bova said.

            “Please stop arguing,” Radu whispered.

            The Starcademy receded from view.

            “We’ll settle this right now. I’ll find a newscast,” Rosie said. She began to scan for signals.

            An emergency blast signal showed up. It showed a fuzzy image of what appeared to be a birdlike people squawking unintelligibly at the screen.

            A banner at the bottom of the screen read, “The UPP is under attack by a group believed to be Lumanians. Several of the Spung homeworlds have been destroyed.”

            A map popped up on screen, showing the path from Spung territory to the UPP. Squarely between the two was New Andromeda Colony, undefended – and not even permitted weapons until 2275.

            “We need to do something,” Radu said.

            Bova typed some calculations into his comp-u-pad.

            “By the time we get anywhere near there, New Andromeda Colony will be destroyed already,” he said.

            Radu frowned. “But could we save the UPP?”

            “Why would you want to save the UPP?” Bova asked, simply curious.

            “Because. I don’t know. Some people are okay. They have families. They have people they care about.” He remembered the pain in Harlan’s face.

            “We can go. Try to head the invaders off,” Rosie said.

            “This ship doesn’t have a lot of capabilities, weapons-wise,” Bova said.

            “I could climb in there, maybe take some of them out,” Radu said. “I’m fast, and I’m strong, and I can hear where they are.”

            “What are we supposed to do?” Rosie asked.

            “Fly away, as fast as you can,” Radu said.

            “We should help you,” Rosie said.

            “It’s too dangerous,” Radu said.

            “It is,” Bova agreed. “Though we’ll probably die either way.”

 

By the time they got to the moon where the alien ships and New Andromeda Colony were, the Colony’s populated areas were destroyed. The fires and fallout were visible from space.

 

Radu climbed from the escape hatch into the alien ship. He immediately heard where all of the Lumanians were on the ship: up toward the front, in the head of the bird’s structure. They were talking to each other in rasps and clicks.

            They were also laughing.

            Back on New Andromeda Colony, all of the eggs were burning; the radiation was destroying the crops; and these things were laughing.

            He walked, then ran, every footfall completely silent, the veiny walls blurry out of the corner of his eyes from speed and rage. The door opened obediently without him having to slow down, and he saw three birdlike creatures – so obviously related to the Spung – delicate, leathery, and twitchy in their movements.

            They were in front of incomprehensible instruments. The crystals were every color, jutting out from the control panels at every angle. Some were lit; some were vibrating; some appeared to be moving on their own.

            One of the creatures spotted him.

            “Would you like to try stopping the destruction of the UPP?” one asked. The others behind it cawed.

            “Please,” another implored mockingly. “Please try.”

            Radu had no idea how to work the ship.

            “Oops. Too late. Look,” said the first one. He pointed at a small blue, green, and white circle on the viewscreen – one that Radu knew, from years of looking at the ceiling of the cafeteria, was Earth.

            It shattered.

            “Boom,” the third one said.

            “The science too technical for you to understand,” the second one said.

            Radu’s arms throbbed and he lunged at the closest one. Its neck gave with only the slightest hint of pressure.

            The other two were cawing in dismay, but only for a moment. Their spines were just as easy to shatter as the first.

            The ship shuddered, very slightly, and two more planets in the distance popped out of existence like Earth had.

            UPP ships were assembling around the ship he was in, firing on it. Radu couldn’t feel a thing. The shields were strong. He didn’t know how to lower them.

            Another part of the screen expanded to show Saturn imploding, then exploding, scattering its moons.

            Deep inside the ship, he heard movement he hadn’t noticed before. He mentally cursed himself for not paying closer attention. The presence was walking back and forth, and, as he was focusing in, beginning to sing. It wasn’t full-power opera singing, just quiet, lonely singing, in a language he didn’t know. It was female, and the most calming thing he’d ever heard.

            For a moment, Radu forgot about the bodies at his feet and the exploding planets.

            The singing stopped.

            His attention returned to the room that looked like the inside of a sickly, throbbing heart. The ship itself sounded like it was breathing – and shuddering a little more. The shields were falling.

            He had to find the source of the voice. He had to try to rescue the girl before the shields stopped being effective at all.

            He ran again, so hard that water vapor escaped from his ears. The hallways kept forking, like blood vessels leaving the heart. He knew, instinctively, which ones to follow. The girl was in a room at the end of a hallway. When he reached it, he didn’t slow down fast enough, and slammed into the door.

            “Hello?” the female voice called.

            If I live long enough, Radu thought, I’m going to bruise.

            “Is someone out there?” the voice asked.

            That voice was perfect. It was like a fresh red apple: crisp, clean and sweet.

            “Miss, I’m here to rescue you,” he said.

            “The door doesn’t open,” she said.

            “I’ll force it open,” he assured her.

            He wedged his fingers into the cracks at the edges of the door and pushed as hard as he could. Nothing. The door’s mechanisms were completely solid.

            “Please,” he whispered, looking at the ceiling, “let something today go right.”

            The door opened, and he fell through it. He pinched his eyes shut from the humiliation.

            “Are you okay?” the voice asked. A palm touched his cheek and he could feel the tips of her hair on his face.

            He opened his eyes.

            His stomach turned. His mouth filled with the bitter fluid that came before throwing up.

            She was a Spung. That perfect voice came from a green, pointed face. She had claws. She had a tail that had wrapped around her and across her feet like a sleeping pet.

            He rolled away from her and stood, glaring.

            “It’s you,” she whispered. “I know you. You had long hair, and a different uniform, but I know you.”

            “We’ve never met,” he said. He’d never seen a Spung up close in his life. Especially not a female. All of the photos he’d ever seen were of males. Her appearance rested in the horrible crevice between disgusting and alluring.

            “We met in the other timeline,” she said. “On this ship.”

            She was crazy, he realized.

            “The other timeline is better than this one,” she said. “The Empire still exists. The Colony still exists. The UPP still exists.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

            “You won’t die as long as I’m with you,” she said. “Around seven years ago, I started seeing the wrong future. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen here, but as long as I’m with you, you’re safe.”

            “I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Is there any way you can drop the shields on this ship so it can be destroyed?”

            She nodded.

            He led her back to the main room, where she went immediately to a side control panel.

            “This is the ship, you know. The exact ship where we met,” she said as she maneuvered the crystals.

            “A few minutes ago,” he said.

            “No. A few years ago,” she said. “That’s how I know how to use these controls. I’ve been on this ship. With you.”

            “Are you crazy?” he asked.

            “I wasn’t, until I started seeing the wrong future,” she said. She paused.

            “The UPP is gone now,” she said. “They just finished with Mercury.”

            “Why did the Lumanians have you here?” he asked.

            “My father ran the Spung Empire. I guess I’m in charge now. Or my husband would be, if I had one,” she said.

            “Was your father… did he enslave…”

            “Yes. I’m sorry.”

            Radu pressed his hand so hard into the wall that he left a dent.

            “So you’re important, politically?” he choked out.

            “I am,” she confirmed.

            “Do I have to threaten you with violence to get you to come with me?” he asked.

            “I’d go with you anywhere,” she said. “I can help guide you to safety. If you follow my instructions, I think I can get us out of this alive.”

            He led her back to the escape pod, putting his hand on her lower back to help her through the portal. As the pod was detaching, the ship pulled away, and disappeared into a pinprick of light.

            Then UPP ships appeared from hyperspace, surrounding them. They were a mix of official ships and Starcademy escape pods.

            “They’re going to kill us,” Radu whispered.

            “No,” she whispered. “You’re safe with me.”

            She was insane. So annoyingly insane.

            “I don’t know what to say to make you believe me,” she said. “But I know you. And I’ll protect you, always.”

            “We’ve… never… met.”

            “We have. You wear light blue every day. You eat soft, brown food that other people think looks gross. You will do anything to avoid an argument. You think carefully about everything, even the little details, before making a decision. It makes people think you’re slow, but you’re not. You often can’t sleep at night because you’re so busy worrying about things.”

            She was right.

            “How can you know that?” he asked.

            “Because I’ve seen you. I dream about you. I… love you.”

            Her neck was even easier to snap than the others’.

            A face popped up on the viewscreen. Harlan Band, the guy who’d made his time at the Starcademy a living nightmare, was tear-streaked and contorted.

            “What were you doing on that ship?” Harlan demanded.

            “I tried to stop them,” Radu said.

            “Bullshit,” Harlan said.

            “I did. I really didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

            Harlan looked at the Spung girl with the snapped neck who was slumped next to him.

            “You were working with them,” Harlan said.

            “I – ”

            “You were in on this!”

            “They took New Andromeda Colony, too.”

            “No one will take you, so you had to ruin it for all of us?”

            “Honestly, no — ”

            The screen flicked off, and the UPP ships destroyed the Starling.

 

…

 

Harlan Band and his ex-girlfriend, Catalina, were directing the younger students in the effort to clean up the bodies in the Lumanian ship. The command post smelled bad; one of the cadets was walking around with air freshener, pushing down on the nozzle as he wandered aimlessly up and down the halls.

            “I hate to say this,” Cat said, “but I think the Andromedan might have been trying to stop them. They’re all dead.”

            “Yeah. I can see that now,” Harlan said softly.

            “At least this ship is amazing,” Cat said. “We can probably learn a lot from it.”

            “Our families are dead,” Harlan reminded her. She reached out and held his hand. She hadn’t done it in years; it felt nice, familiar.

            “I wish the UPP had had this ship – and someone who knew how to fly it – earlier today,” she said.

            Her face scrunched and turned red. She knew she was an ugly crier; she’d been told it her whole life.

            “Let’s see if we can find the weapons systems,” she said. “Figure out how they work. In case they come back.”

            “Why? There’s nothing left to defend,” Harlan said.

            “Science matters,” Cat said.

            “Why?”

            “I don’t know. I need to believe in something. Just let me have this.”

            They walked through the halls hand-in-hand, with Harlan’s free hand holding a gun in case any more of the creatures jumped out.

            “I think that, based on the proportions of the ship, the engine room should be around here somewhere,” she said after about ten minutes of silent walking.

            A door opened.

            They dropped to the ground, Harlan holding the gun in front of them.

            An android walked out.

            “The engine room is in here. My name in Universal is THELMA. I can show you how it works,” a birdlike android said.

            “Oh hell no,” Harlan whispered.

            “I am using the ship’s systems to scan your heart rates, and I see that you are frightened and sad. Can I help in any way?”

            “Start by not looking like an evil monster,” Harlan said.

            Before their eyes, the bird android turned into a human woman with a slightly beakish nose.

            “Wow,” Cat said. She released Harlan’s hand and walked over to the android.

            “You are now the crew of this ship,” THELMA said.

            “What’s the ship’s name?” Cat asked.

            THELMA clicked out something unpronounceable.

            “Well, it’s now the… Christa,” Cat said.

            “Why?” Harlan said.

            “After the school teacher in the Challenger,” Cat said. “For sacrifice of innocents in the cold reaches of space.”

            She wiped her nose on her uniform.

            “Okay. Show us how the ship’s weapons systems work, and anything else that would be useful to helping our remaining people survive,” Harlan said.

 

…

 

“Cat, wake up,” Harlan said. He was in the girls’ bunk room, leaning over Cat at around 0200 hours.

            The students and UPP staff from the attack were sleeping over in the ship overnight. Their orders from above were to help research the ship, which really just meant that the UPP had no idea what to do with them or the ship for the time being. They were too busy getting destroyed by the Lumanians in other parts of the universe.

            “I just had the craziest idea,” Harlan said.

            “You don’t have any other kind of idea,” Cat grumbled. She pulled her blanket over her head; Harlan yanked it back.

            The other students in the girls’ room shushed them.

            “I saw this movie, with my dad” Harlan whispered. “Where they used the warp core to send a ship back in time.”

            “Shut up,” Cat said.

            “Seriously.”

            “Yes. _Seriously_. Shut up.”

            “Listen. We can send the ship backwards. We can use its weapons to blow up the ship itself.”

            Cat climbed out of the bed and led him into the hallway.

            “You can’t have a ship blow itself up,” she said. “It’s a paradox. Even if you could send a ship or some other object or person back in time, it would just create a parallel universe. This one would remain unchanged, otherwise we wouldn’t be under the circumstances needed to send it backwards in the first place.”

            “But you’re saying that it is possible,” Harlan said.

            “It is. But it wouldn’t help us,” she said.

            “But we could create another dimension where my mom and your aunt and uncle would be alive?” he said.

            She started ugly crying again.

 

…

 

            In the engine room, Harlan was taking the android’s crystal in and out while Catalina did calculations.

            “Stop fidgeting with THELMA,” she said finally.

            “You’re calling it by its name?”

            “That’s what it – she – wants to go by. Stop that. You might hurt it. Her.”

            “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so mad.”

            “I’m mad because I can’t get the drive to get us any closer than, like, six and a half years,” Cat said. “The formulae don’t work.”

            “So send it back six and a half years,” he said simply.

            “So… the ship will go back to summer school, and our previous selves and Commander Goddard and the vice principal can call in the rest of the UPP to study it?” she asked.

            “Okay,” he said. “That sounds good. Our previous selves will just hang onto it and then the experts will figure out how all the stuff works.”

            He paused.

            “What if we go on it?” he asked.

            “Why would _ever_ we go on it?” she asked.

            “Because, wouldn’t you want to explore an alien ship?”

            “Are you serious?” she demanded. “I guess we can program THELMA. In the event our previous selves are stupid – and I don’t think my previous self would ever be so dumb – we can program her to deactivate the time-travel drives and weapons until someone responsible from the UPP comes on board.”

            “Okay,” he said.

            “Let’s get everyone off the ship. Come up with some kind of an emergency. Once everyone’s off it, it’ll go back,” she said.

            “We’ll say we discovered the ship was set to self-destruct.”

            She laughed. “Nice. You did watch a lot of old movies.”

 

**2266: On the Christa, Show Timeline**

 

“The controls are hard to explain, but they’re kind of intuitive after a while,” Bova told Elmira. “Sometimes controls will disappear or new stuff will appear or things will get new functions. But you’ll understand it. It’s like part of you. The ship adapts to you and you adapt to it.”

            “What?” Elmira asked. She turned to Radu for help.

            Radu shrugged. He was pretending to do homework on the floor in front of the navigation station. He’d been trailing behind her since she’d shown up in a ship yesterday, giving them directions on how to get as far away from the Spung Empire as they could, as quickly as possible. He didn’t expect her to stay long, so he was, for lack of a better word, stalking her. Soaking up her voice like it was a glass of water.

            “How do you feel like this should work?” Bova asked. “You’ve got shields. So what do you think… this is?”

            He pointed at some crystals that were fluctuating slightly at different levels in front of him.

            “How strong they are right now… at different distances from the ship,” she said.

            “Yeah. That’s what it is,” Radu said in surprise. He dropped the pretense of the homework and walked over to Elmira and Bova.

            “So… you are going through a tight spot and you don’t want wide shields. But you do want tight shields really strong around you in case you do bump into something,” Bova said.

            Elmira’s long, pointed fingers reached over to the outermost crystals and pushed them down, pulling up the ones closest at the same time.

            “Oh no,” Bova said.

            “No?” Elmira asked.

            “I have no idea what you just did. It was these controls here,” Bova said, pointing at a series of levers off to the side.

            “It worked,” Radu said. “I can hear it.”

            The outer crystals were fluctuating slightly, as were the inner crystals, indicating the shields’ new status.

            “Yeah,” Bova said in genuine surprise. “I thought she was going to kill us all.”

            He paused, touching his wishbone.

            “This way is actually going to be easier,” he said. “Thanks.”

            The levers off to the side vanished.

            Elmira gasped.

            “That happens all the time,” Radu said. “The ship makes itself more efficient.”

            “One of these days, it’s going to change itself, and we’re not going to figure it out in time, and we’re all going to die,” Bova said.

            “We are not,” Radu said.

            “Probably just me,” Bova said.

            Elmira laughed. Radu had never heard her laugh before; it was lovely, like a glass chandelier smashing.

            _Oh no_ , Radu thought, stomach clenching. _I need to get away from her before this gets worse_. But he couldn’t.

            “The engine room has some really weird stuff going on,” Bova said. “Maybe you can help streamline that, too. Come on.”

            “You wanna join us, Radu?” Elmira asked.

            Radu nodded. He didn’t really have a choice. He could feel himself getting attached. It was like his insides were being pulled out of him and knitted together in a different form.

            He followed them into the engine room.

 

…

 

**2267: On the Christa and UPP, Show Timeline**

 

Harlan and Rosie had devised a “one year ’til we’re back” song, which involved them whispering it to each other, then slowly raising the volume until they were screaming. Even though Bova and Suzee made Radu adjustable noise-canceling earbuds, he still found it to be the most annoying noise in the world. It echoed through the ship.

            “You really don’t think it’s cute at all?” Suzee asked Radu as they sat on the floor of the MedLab playing Minbar chess.

            “No. Not cute at all.”

            “Is it because you don’t want to be back at Starcademy? We’ll take care of you. It won’t be like it was that year before the Christa.”

            Radu nodded, even though that wasn’t why. It was because when they yelled like that, he had to dim the noise, and he couldn’t hear her heartbeat any more. He glanced up at the healing chamber. No movement.

            “I wish I had your spatial ability,” Suzee said, indicating the board.

            “I wish I had the ability to strategize,” Radu said. “I get too easily distracted.”

            “Together, we’d be one really good player,” Suzee said. “Hey! Maybe we could mind-meld, like in your head, and then we could beat Harlan.”

            “How is he the undisputed champion?” Radu stage-whispered.

            “I don’t know,” she said. “But we really need to take him down a peg. Do you think… she’d mind?”

            They both looked up at the healing chamber.

            “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

            The “one year ’til we’re back” song ended abruptly outside the door. Harlan and Rosie walked in. Rosie walked over to the healing chamber and fiddled with a few controls.

            Harlan sat down. “Who’s winning?”

            Radu and Suzee both pointed at each other.

            “If I were playing, I’d be winning,” he said.

            “Ugh,” Suzee said.

            “We need to get off this ship,” Radu said.

            “We need to find a game nobody has any childhood experience with. A fresh game,” Rosie said.

            “But this is the best possible game of all games!” Harlan said.

            “Because you always win it!” Suzee said.

            “Jealous? I feel like you’re jealous. Jealous of me. Harlan Band. You can’t catch a Band on the run!”

            “Maybe we could have THELMA make up a game,” Rosie said.

            “It would probably kill us all,” Harlan said in a Bova monotone.

            “Probably,” Radu said. Then, after a pause, he added, in his best Bova voice, “I’m starving.”

            “You eat the most hideous stuff,” Harlan said.

            “Seriously, let’s get something to eat,” Radu said.

            Suzee pressed a save sequence on the game, and it disappeared into the floor.

            “You guys go ahead. I’ll be there in a second,” he said to Suzee and Harlan.

            After they left, he walked over to Rosie, who was studying a spreadsheet.

            “What does it mean? Is she okay?” he asked.

            “She’ll be fine. The worst was the tail, but her body’s blood-producing marrow wasn’t based there. She’s not so weak now, according to this, but I’m going to have to keep an eye on her white blood cell count.”

            “She has such tiny bones,” he said.

            “She’s stronger than she looks,” Rosie said.

            He looked down at her, wrapped in blood-soaked protective gauze while the liquid in the healing chamber regenerated her skin and healed the bones that had been sawed down.

            “Okay,” he said uncertainly. He followed Rosie out of the room toward the dining hall.

 

**2268: On the Christa, Show Timeline**

 

Rosie knocked on the open door to the boys’ bunk.

            “I brought something,” she said. She was holding the bear.

            “Why? I’m not sick,” he said.

            “People might not be nice to you all the time,” she said. “Maybe he can keep you company.”

            “Maybe they’ll make fun of me because I am carrying a stuffed animal in my bag,” he replied – but he took the bear anyway. He put it in his duffel and zipped it up.

            Rosie squeaked.

            “What?” he asked.

            “It can’t breathe.”

            “It doesn’t need to breathe.”

            “Please? Just unzip it a crack?”

            Radu unzipped the bag an inch.

            “Thank you,” she said.

            All of the other stuff in the room – the games, the keepsakes, the majority of the clothing – would have to be left behind. The Starcademy had a strict rule about students only bringing one school-issued duffel bag with them each school year. It kept them from being too attached to possessions. It helped them segue into the austere, nomadic lifestyle that STARDOGs led.

Radu patted the wall by his bed.

            “Goodbye, room,” Rosie called over her shoulder as they left.

            In the hallway, Bova was standing next to a tiny, freckled Earther-looking girl with jet-black curls.

            “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Radu asked her.

            “It’s probably a terrible idea,” Bova said.

            “One that will get you, specifically, killed?” Radu said.

            “Of course,” Bova said, but he was smiling.

            Harlan and Suzee came around the corner with the Commander and Miss Davenport.

            “Who’s ready to be in trouble?” the Commander asked.

            “I am!” Rosie said. “I can’t wait to see my parents.”

            “We’re probably going to get a long lecture from the Admiral first,” Harlan said.

            “We’re going to get lectures from half the brass in the UPP,” the Commander said.

            “Will it all be at once, or do you think it’ll be spread over several months?” Harlan said.

            “It’ll be spread over several years,” Bova said.

            “You should be fine… Alice,” Suzee said.

            “As long as they don’t do any blood tests or X-rays,” the small, freckled girl said.

            “Close X-rays, on your spine or face,” Rosie corrected her.

            “You can opt out of medical attention,” Radu reminded her. “That’s what I had to do when I entered. I signed a waiver that I would only get seen by doctors in the most extreme life-or-death circumstances, because they knew none of them were trained for me.”

            “Retina scans should be fine,” Rosie said.

            “Right,” ‘Alice’ said.

            “And we gave you fingerprints.”

            “Right.”

            “Should we say goodbye to the ship?” Harlan asked, interrupting a conversation he’d heard multiple times that day alone.

            “They’re keeping it to study it for a few weeks,” Suzee said.

            “But, like, as a group,” Harlan said.

            “How do you suggest we do that?” Bova asked.

            Harlan touched the wall. They all did. It glowed for a moment, then went dark.

            “Okay,” the Commander said. “Let’s go.”

 

**2268: At the Starcademy, Show Timeline**

 

Even with his hearing deadened down to the “Earther” preset, Radu thought the noise was overbearing. Parents, siblings, cousins, friends – all roaring and clutching at everyone but him and… Alice.

            Even Suzee was being warmly greeted by Catalina’s aunt, uncle, and two female cousins.

            “It’s loud, right?” he asked ‘Alice.’

            “This sort of thing is always loud. Everyone is saying everything they’ve wanted to say for the last seven years. At once,” she said.

            The principal shimmied through the crowd up to them. “While they’re busy, Mr. Radu and Miss… Alice? – yes, Alice – we’re going to do your intake forms first. Come with us.”

            A nurse was in the principal’s office with a scale.

            “Fill this out,” the principal told Radu, handing him a compupad. “It’s a form checking in on your mental state, and a medical and legal waiver covering your experiences past, present, and future in association with the Starcademy and all experiences and potential damages associated therewith, including but not limited to your” – she waved her hands around in the air – “travels.”

            “Alice,” the nurse said. “You’re five-five and weigh one hundred and twenty-one pounds, which is standard for a girl of your basic height and size. Are you in good health today? Are you fostering any communicable diseases, including venereal?”

            “Yes to the good health, no to the disease,” she responded.

            Radu was flicking through the forms, signing where he found a red line.

            “You are waiving your right to medical treatment except in the case of dire emergency, is this correct?” the nurse asked.

            “Yes.”

            “May I ask why?” the nurse asked.

            “I’m part Lumanian, part Peterian, and part Davidian. Due to the unique structure of my DNA, I’m concerned about chemical reactions.”

            Radu watched the speech nervously. They’d practiced it several times, tweaking the language until they felt it was right.

            The nurse wasn’t paying as close attention. She shrugged and said, “That’s fine. Fingerprints and retinal scans, please.”

             The principal asked, “Do you have any unique skills to give to the Starcademy? You’ve written here that you speak some Spung?”

            “I was taught some when I was younger, just in case. I’m not sure if I’m fluent or not.”

            “We can have the Spung experts come in and test that! How wonderful! That might be useful, I suppose.”

            “You suppose?” Radu asked.

            “Well, considering what’s been happening to the Empire, it might not be as useful as, it appears, Lumanian.”

            “What are you talking about?” ‘Alice’ asked. The question sounded normal, but Radu could hear her tri-valve heart fluttering.

            “We didn’t hear anything about this,” Radu added.

            “You don’t have satellites on that ship, do you?” the principal asked. Neither responded, so she continued, “The Spung Empire has been attacked by a birdlike race. They destroyed a few of the homeworlds.”

            “Oh,” ‘Alice’ said nonchalantly.

            “Mr. Radu, please step onto the scale,” the nurse said.

            It took ‘Alice’ a moment to realize she needed to move off the scale. She was handed similar legal forms to wade through. Unlike Radu, she studied hers closely, or, at least, pretended to.

            “Mr. Radu, you appear to be… five feet, four inches tall – and two hundred and five pounds?”

            “We’re molecularly dense,” Radu said.

            The nurse was still staring at the scale.

            “It’s right,” he said he assured her. “It is.”

            “Are you concerned about this birdlike race?” ‘Alice’ asked. She put the compupad on the ground. “Where are they now?”

            “It’s all right, dear,” the principal said. “Obviously, any enemies of the Spung are friends of ours.”

            “What if we’re next?”

            “We have strategists who study that sort of thing, and they think it’s going to be just fine.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Please, dear,” the principal said, voice steely, “don’t worry about it.”

            After years of growing up in an authoritarian household, ‘Alice’ knew an order when she heard one.

            “Mr. Radu, are you in sound health and do you have — ”

            “I’m fine. And no, no diseases; I’ve never had sex.”

            The nurse put a hand to her bosom for a moment, then tapped a note into the compupad in front of her.

            “As you’ve both waived physical care due to your unique body compositions, this is the end of your intake, as far as I’m concerned,” the nurse said. “If you need any specific chemicals or advice, I will do what I can.”

            She did an awkward combination bow and wave, then left.

            ‘Alice’ finished her forms in the ensuing agonizing pause.

            Finally, the principal said, “There will, of course, be further testing – can you run a mile? Can you fix an engine? How are your skills in various languages? Can you do the mathematics necessary to safely maintain course? … But for now, you are dismissed. I trust that you, Mr. Radu, can lead Miss Alice to the ladies’ dormitory?”

            Radu nodded, and the principal took the compupad ‘Alice’ proffered her. As the principal sat down in her green leather chair, Radu noticed age lines on her face he hadn’t seen before.

            “That didn’t go too badly, did you think?” he asked her when they were walking down the hallway.

            “We need to talk,” she said.

            “We are talking,” he said.

            “I don’t see them.”

            “See what? Who?”

            “I can usually see things that happen. You know – see.”

            “Right. See. I know.”

            “I can’t see them. At all. Why can’t I see them?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Do you think my family’s alive?”

            “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay. I left.”

            They walked quietly to the girls’ dorm for a minute.

            “Did you have to tell them you were a virgin?” she asked.

            “It’s true,” he said.

            “It doesn’t have to be true.”

            “Can we not have this argument again?”

            “I’ve recovered. I’ve been fine for six months.”

            “I can hear your bones. They’re more delicate than they were. Parts of some of them are gone.”

            “Rosie cleared me.”

            “I wish Rosie hadn’t said that to you.”

            “She said it was fine.”

            “When I drink from glasses, I smash them sometimes. Do you know what that’s like?”

            Just as she opened her mouth to retort, the silver speakers implanted along the ceilings spoke.

            “All students are to report to their rooms immediately.”

            The classrooms to either side of them let out. He grabbed her elbow and started running to the girls’ dorms. Because the room assignments shifted regularly, there was a directory at the entrance. “Alice” was near the top.

            When they walked into her room, Harlan’s cousin, Rae, was sitting on the other bed, staring at the TV.

            “Hey,” she said, not looking at them. “Those people that attacked the Spung Empire are moving this way, and they’re not responding to the UPP’s messages.”

            “I said – ” ‘Alice’ started.

            Radu shushed her and pointed at the screen. Planets were being destroyed.

            “They’re headed for New Andromeda Colony,” Rae said, pointing at the map in the corner.

            And Radu was running. He could hear his girlfriend running behind him, light feet tapping behind his silent ones. Her small lungs took swift breaths.

            Two more bodies joined behind them, Rosie and Suzee.

            Waiting at the entry to the Christa were Harlan and Bova.

            “You don’t have to do this,” Radu told them. 

            “Yes we do,” Harlan said.

           

“So the ship doesn’t have weapons systems,” Bova said as they walked through the airlock. “What’s our plan to stop ships that have destroyed entire worlds?”

            “We have a thing in my dimension, a large neural net, that’s sometimes used to stop sentient ships from entering areas that they could get damaged. We could rig it as a stop-point. It would only hold them off for a little while,” Suzee said. “They could hypothetically figure out how to get around it.”

            “That’d give us enough time for the Andromedans to get war ships out,” Rosie said.

            “Not to New Andromeda Colony,” Radu said. “We aren’t allowed war ships. Not that we’d have made any, anyway.”

            “We’ll do everything we can to protect your people,” Harlan said.

            “Now there’s something I doubt you ever thought you’d say,” Suzee said.

            “Well –” Harlan began. 

            “Not now,” Elmira said.

            They walked into the Command Post, and all of the controls were different.

            “Not today,” Bova groaned.

            “Where’s THELMA?” Rosie asked.

            THELMA walked in. “The Christa’s full capabilities are back on-line,” she said in a normal speaking voice.

            “Were they _not_ on-line?” Suzee asked.

            “The Christa’s memory banks are also back on-line,” she added.

            “What’s in them?” Bova asked.

            “I have a map of the route this ship used the last time. I understand that this may be confusing to you, but believe me when I say that I know the order in which the Lumanians will attack and in what formations.”

            “We can upload that information to UPP headquarters,” Rosie said.

            “Do you speak Lumanian now?” Harlan asked.

            “That part of my memory is back on-line, yes.”

            “Okay,” Harlan said. “I have a plan.”

            “Oh, no,” Bova said.

            “Listen. We’ll cut them off at New Andromeda Colony and say that we’ve got it under control. In Lumanian. They’ll see this ship and be like ‘oh, okay, they’re one of us.’ THELMA sounds like a regular person now. She can translate something like ‘we already blew up the UPP, you can turn around now.’ ”

            “That’s almost stupid enough to work,” Suzee said. “Almost.”

            “In case it doesn’t, we can call my people and tell them to evacuate,” Radu said. “They almost never take calls from the UPP. They might take one from us.”

            Elmira said, “I can fake a Spung killcruiser transmission that we could bounce off satellites to sound like it’s coming from somewhere they’re not guarding.”

            “A double-distraction,” Harlan said.

            “I’m going to work on raising the shields,” Bova said, “just in case.”

            “I’m going to rig up the communications station to boost the power to New Andromeda Colony and the Lumanian fighter ships,” Rosie said.

            “I’m going to go into the Christa’s database to start figuring out how to word this message in Lumanian,” Suzee said.

            “I’m going to fly this thing as fast and close as I can,” Harlan said.

            They stood in a circle and put their hands together. 

            “Let’s go save the universe,” Harlan said.

            “We are definitely going to screw this up,” Bova said.

 

**2269 (six months later): UPP, Show Timeline**

 

Harlan broke the zipper on his uniform, cursed, and dismissed it on the ground. The Lumanians didn’t understand or care about uniforms anyway.

            Radu and his wife were sitting by the airlock. She was studying Lumanian on her comp-u-pad. He was watching her.

            “Hey guys,” Harlan said. “Where’s everyone else?”

            “On the ship already. You’re late,” ‘Alice said.’

            “You aren’t in uniform,” Radu said. He was fully covered, neck to toes, as usual.

            “They don’t care,” ‘Alice’ said.

            “It’s awesome that we’re opening up trade with the Lumanians. And by ‘we,’ I mean ‘we.’ Us. Famous,” Harlan said. “The ‘Starcademy Seven, saviors of the UPP. Masters of the Cease-Fire. People who turned Enemies into People Who Haven’t Killed Us Just Yet.’ ”

            “No one has ever used those words about us,” Radu said.

            “I don’t like not being part of the ‘Starcademy Seven.’ I was there, too,” ‘Alice’ said.

            “You’re less famous. Sorry,” Harlan said.

            “It’s not about us. It’s about the people,” Radu said.

            “We can help the people out by continuing to be big damn heroes,” Harlan said. He flipped one arm around each of them as they climbed into the Christa to fly to New Lumania. They had a peace agreement to finalize.


End file.
